Chicanonautica: The Info Wilderness and the Masked Marvel

by Ernest Hogan

Further north through the marine layer fog with the sun struggling to burn through.

Deep into that forest, there was no cell coverage. Disconnected. The wilderness of the Information Age.

Once the fog had cleared, on a forest mountain road, we were held up by road construction. A flagger avoided eye contact. Soon the pilot car could be seen. The flagger exhaled a huge, thick vape cloud. It was hard to believe that human lungs could hold that much. We told him we were impressed.

A sign said NO SERVICES IN ROCKPORT. I thought it would make a good story title. A tale of the info wilderness . . .

We came across some old, rusted farm equipment. You often see it in rural areas, they look weird, like sculptures, so I can’t resist taking pictures. There were saws in the mix . .  . Hmm.

An old guy and a woman came out and asked if we wanted any firewood. He had a workshop. A wood guy! He and Mike hit it off, talking wood, he even cut Mike a chunk of weird wood. Mike was going to use it in making his drums.

Jim the Woodcutter had a lot to say. The local economy tanked when the illegal marijuana business was replaced by the legal cannabis industry. No more wild times and lighting joints with hundred dollar bills.

As we were pulling back on the road, another guy came walking by. He had an American flag sticking out of his backpack. He said his name was John and he was walking across America. He started in Florida. We gave him some money.

We pulled into Leggett in search of a bathroom.

Found one in the Peg House, that was built using a mortise and tenon style of joinery–pegs!--without a single nail. It’s also a restaurant and a live music venue.

There were lots of interesting stickers that blended into some collage art.

It was also for sale.

I found a battered copy of a novel about Pancho Villa for next to nothing at a Garberville thrift shop. With my story “ Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus” in Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song and my family’s Villista connections, he’s become like a patron saint to me, the way John “San Juan de Hollywood” Wayne is to certain other Americanos.

Then there was Anglin Second Hand in Eureka. It was not far from a YES, YOU CAN SMOKE WEED INSIDE place.

And talk about weird shit! I’d say they were ready for Halloween, but there was something about the back room serial killer tableau that had me considering otherwise. 

And I found a copy of  The Fair God: Or, Last of the ‘Tzins, A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico, by Lew Wallace, the 35th edition from 1887.

After more foggy forests, we came to Crescent City, where we found a great Mexican restaurant called Toreros.

Not only was the food good, the joint was brimming over with its own kind of weirdness, from the magic mushroom and critical of capitalism bathroom graffiti—for once, actually scratched, graffiti meaning “little scratch” Italian—

to kitchy beer ad art, 

to a bizarre flower pot that featured what has to be one of the most demented uses of a dolphin ever.

I was heading for the door feeling satisfied, when Emily said, “You’ve got to have this,” and handed me a trifold she found on a nearby rack. It had a picture of an enmascarado. Figuring it looked promising, I tucked it into my sketchbook.

Turns out it was—en español—the story of Bob Pettitt, a non-Hispanic name, but I should talk. He was having a fantastic career in professional wrestling, under many names: La Maravilla Enmascarada, La Pantera Rosa, El Consentido Enmascarado, Bob Pitts, El Poderoso Yankee, Señor ‘X’, y como la Pantera Negra. When he had a horrific car accident, and was miraculously cured, he gave up the ring to spread the word of the Lord. 

I Googled him, and he was for real. In the Seventies he was preaching, helping a newspaper expose the wrestling biz, and appearing on a Christian children’s TV show, Black Buffalo Pow Wow. He’d be pretty old now. Could he still be alive? The trifold a P.O. box in Appleton, WA, was for people to write for more copies of this  IMPRESSION NUMERO OCHO ! Just how miraculous was that cure . . .

Weirdness. But then the art form (not sport) of lucha libre is a variation on the medieval morality plays, where angels and demons bashed it out on stage.

Come to think of it, aren’t the two most famous luchadors named Santo and Blue Demon?

Ernest Hogan’s new book, Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories is out! His reading of an excerpt will be part of an upcoming episode of the radio program/podcast Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files from Lumpen Radio. And he will be teaching an online class on “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” at the Spring 2024 Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop.